The EMA cannot yet foresee if the vaccines will have to be adapted to the new strain - World News

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) considers it "premature" to foresee whether it will be necessary to adapt the covid-19 vaccines "with a different composition" to deal with the new emerging variant of coronavirus, and stressed that the current information on the operation of this strain is "insufficient".

A source from the EMA assured Efe that the data now known about the so-called South African variant are "insufficient to determine whether this variant is going to spread significantly and to what extent it can evade the immunity received with the authorized vaccines." in the European Union (EU).

"If it were shown that a new mutated variant evades immunity and spreads rapidly in places where the delta variant (now) predominates, it would be relevant to initiate activities related to the update of vaccines", admitted the European agency.

But, for now, he believes that it is "premature to foresee the need for an adapted vaccine with a different composition" to deal with this new emerging strain.

The agency “continuously” monitors the detected mutations of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, to monitor the possible impact it may have on the effectiveness of any of the covid-19 vaccines available in the EU ie Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen.

"We are closely monitoring the newly emerged B.1.1.529 variant that exhibits numerous mutations in the spike protein" of the virus, he adds.

Both the EMA and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) are continuously analyzing the "emerging data" on new worrying variants, including the one detected in South Africa, says the same source.

The EMA has already issued a guide that describes to pharmaceutical companies the necessary requirements in case they have plans to modify their vaccines against covid-19 to "address new variants" of the coronavirus, if it is shown that protection is reduced due to a important mutation of the virus.

The detection of this new variant in South Africa worries the scientific community because it presents an amalgam of more than 30 mutations that, although some had already been observed in other variants, such as beta, this is the first time they have been seen together.

Fears of this new strain have led several countries around the world, including in the EU, to shut down air traffic from southern African countries, especially South Africa and Botswana.

Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Austria and Israel are some of the countries that have chosen to suspend travel temporarily.